News - Pond in Hawaii turns bright pink

The water in a pond on Maui in Hawaii has many people doing double takes because of its bright pink hue, AP reported. Scientists say that drought may be the reason why the water in the Kealia Pond National Wildlife Refuge on Maui is a bright pink color. Kealia Pond National Wildlife Refuge staff have been reportedly monitoring the pink water since the end of October. “Sure enough toward sunset the lighting was good, I just happened to drive by and I was like, it’s like Pepto Bismol pink,” Travis Morrin, a Maui business owner and photographer, told HNN-TV. Some of the concern at first was that the pink color was a sign of an algae bloom, but lab tests came back and proved that it was not toxic algae causing. It was an organism called halobacteria, “a type of archaea or single-celled organism that thrive in bodies of water with high levels of salt.” The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said that the salinity in the Kealia Pond outlet is currently more than 70 parts per thousand, which is also twice the salinity found in seawater. Further DNA testings will need to be done to identify the organism.